So, I`ve finally found some time to create some real 3D cockpit.

Obviously, it`s a programmer`s art (I don`t have any artist at hand), but it`s better than nothing, I guess.




Now, that I`ve played with 3D meshes, I`m thinking of creating some buildings/structures so that the land isn`t so void. Meaning - some Mars base buidlings, where the player would start his mission.

Made some progress today - since I`m short on artists currently, I had to model my own rover :-) - I`ve chosen Sojourner.
At least I`ve brushed up my 3d modelling skills enough so that I won`t have much troubles modelling some HUD as next.

As for the gameplay - I`m thinking of something extremely simple, yet challenging and still somewhat relevant.

I just had an idea that you would control the other rover (maybe second manned vehicle, if I get enough time to model/texture one) in search of the lost Sojourner.
As we know, the rover had to climb on hills with certain angle so that it could gather enough energy to survive the winter.
I would stretch that a little bit and the player would have to navigate its own rover in such a way that he would maximize the amount of energy gathered - i.e. he would have to avoid shaded areas and try to find a path through sun-lit terrain areas with the best angle/slope.
That is still somewhat relevant, yet could pose an interesting gameplay challenge.

And if I also managed to implement the storms with random paths, that could bring some replayability :-)

I`m also hoping for some cutscenes, using my own in-engine camera editor - where I could edit few cinematic cameras to convey a movie-like feeling.

Still, that`s a lot of work considering I`ve got time only during weekends :-(

I`m using World Machine for generation of the terrain mesh. So the kudos for the erosion must go to Stephen, who created WM.

As for the colormaps - those can be also generated by World Machine, but I`m prefering my own set of routines for procedural texturing. That can`t be seen very well at this Mars scene, it`s IMO better here http://www.avenger.sk/scr/Scr02/ScreenShot005.jpg

But since the base color of Mars is red, it looks weird if there`s more noise (like in that mountain scene), so I`m keeping the current (i.e. more simple) look of the textures.

Still, I should rather spend the time on the gameplay. Terrain tweaking is an endless process, since it`s like a drug. I`ve spent almost 2 years (of my free time), till I got the terrain renderer to its current state - i.e. fluent streaming (in the background) from the endless data set. I`ve scrapped the terrain code/classes about 5 times already, and I`m still not happy with it, but it looks acceptably, is extremely fast if needed (i.e. 3000 fps when overviewing the whole terrain from high above) and most of all - it doesn`t require a pixel shader.

I`ve tested it (well, not this iteration, but about 2 iterations back) on GF2 and it ran.
Though, these days it doesn`t mean anything since PS 4.0 cards cost $20...

I`m not worried about the performance. Check the FPS on those shots:
http://www.avenger.sk/mars/3000FPS_01.jpg
http://www.avenger.sk/mars/3000FPS_02.jpg
That was taken on 1.6GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM and GF7 card.

Of course, when you`re in lower altitudes and all materials are shown, performance drops, since higher LODs kick in as well as the multimaterial shaders. But it`s still about 500 FPS, if I remember correctly.

I`m surely not worried about the polygons of any meshes. The scene can take another 250.000 - 500.000 polygons, which is more than enough, considering the Mars environment 


I don`t know about the rover mesh though. I`ve just checked and those that can be bought online are in excess of $120. I won`t pay that much. Maybe $10 max.
Even though my 3D art skills are mediocre, the shapes of Pathfinder are mostly simple one. See http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/226660
So, I believe I could make one myself.


As for the particles, well I`ll see if I can get it tweaked to suit my vision. Do you remember Brian DePalma`s movie "Mission To Mars" with Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins ? There were some spectacular space storms/tornadoes. Of course, it would take me weeks to play with the particle paths/trajectories and I wouldn`t even get anywhere near the quality that was in that movie, but it`s a noble goal in itself indeed   

I don`t want to overshoot in terms of features, though. I`m going to estimate the time needed to implement the either of the few scenarios and go for the least risky one.
But I would be pissed if the sand storm didn`t make it to the game 

The LOD is standard static LOD with several precreated Index Buffers.
But that doesn`t help at all once you`ve got 32x32 chunks, which would be an enormous amount of DIP calls, totally killing the CPU.

So, I had to come up with a system that seamlessly blends the inner 5x5 chunks with the outer 32x32, represented by much small amount of chunks. It was a pain in the ass to get rid of the cracks, but it was worth it.

The terrain size can be unlimited - it streams gradualy in the background (few KB of data each frame to avoid spikes in HDD/CPU usage)

I had to resize the images in first post, so here are the original ones:

http://www.avenger.sk/mars/mars00.jpg
http://www.avenger.sk/mars/mars01.jpg
http://www.avenger.sk/mars/mars02.jpg
http://www.avenger.sk/mars/mars03.jpg

Few weeks ago, I`ve watched a documentary on Discovery Channel, that described numerous issues of Mars rovers (Discovery/Spirit) while exploring the Red Planet.
So, when I`ve read on the current theme of the compo, I couldn`t resist the urge to join.

Here`s my current status (massive streaming terrain renderer):




Story :
Mission Day 537:
Spirit Rover`s location remains unknown. The area is being devastated by a series of Sand Storms, one of them being the size of a Texas. The odds of location transmitter survival are zero, but there`s a slim chance that the rover`s body might survive it, including the mission-critical photos and internal route details.
Those photos of a cave entrance with something deep inside that looked like a small pool of water changed the mission priorities.
You MUST find the rover now ! We can`t wait till the storm is over. The entrance to cave shall be surely filled by the sand now. But the internal route details will provide us with the exact location.
Before we lost the contact, the rover was heading towards Melas Chasma, completely ignoring our halr commands. As you probably know, that canyon is up to 9.500 meters deep. Should the rover fall, it won`t ever rise again.
You`ve got 2-4 days till it gets to the rim...



The game is written using my own 3D engine (DirectX/C++).